First the universities and now high school kids!

“600-700 policemen, including women officers, anti-terrorist squad commandos and officers in plainclothes descended and told us they would arrest us because a protest rally was not allowed,” a student from Islamabad participating in the protest said.

“We have the capacity to defend ourselves!” – Pakistan tells United States

“If there is any threat to our nuclear assets and sovereignty, we have the capacity to defend ourselves,” – Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq.

Pak militant in league with Al Qaeda nabbed

Peninsula is reporting that Pakistani security forces yesterday seized a top militant accused of harbouring Al Qaeda insurgents, beheading troops and supplying arms to a rebel cleric in the country’s north-west. The man was captured in the north-western Swat Valley, a former tourist spot where Pakistani troops are battling pro-Taleban Islamists seeking to impose harsh Shariah law, security officials said.

Chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad confirmed to AFP that security forces had arrested a “top suspect involved in militancy.”

“He is under interrogation. The man identified himself as Parwant and says he is local,” Arshad said, adding the man’s real name was not yet known.

Benazir: under 7-day house arrest (again!)

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairperson Benazir Bhutto was put under house arrest in the early hours of Tuesday to prevent her from leading a long march on Islamabad.

Police said an order under section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order had been issued by the Punjab government to detain Ms Bhutto for a week in the house of PPP Senator Latif Khosa where she has been staying since her arrival here on Sunday.

A Lahore police official said police deployment was being increased around Mr Khosa’s house and the PPP chairperson would stay there till further orders.

Meanwhile, Punjab police as well as Lahore police launched a ‘massive crackdown’ on PPP office-bearers and activists late in the night and rounded up hundreds of them. Punjab PPP information secretary Farzana Raja told Dawn that telephone calls and text messages received by her confirmed reports that the Punjab police had launched the crackdown.

Read more at [Dawn]